The Casebook of Victor Frankenstein by Peter Ackroyd A Novel

A New York Times Notable Book andProvidence Journal Best Book of the Year

From the incomparable Peter Ackroyd: a brilliant re-imagination of the classic tale that has enthralled readers for nearly two centuries.

Victor Frankenstein, a researcher, and the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley form an unlikely friendship as first-years at Oxford. Shelley challenges the conventionally religious Frankenstein to consider his atheistic notions of creation and life—concepts that become an obsession for the young scientist. As Victor begins conducting anatomical experiments to reanimate the dead, he at first uses corpses supplied by the coroner. But these specimens prove imperfect for Victor’s purposes…

Filled with the literary lights of the day, including Percy Shelley, Godwin, Lord Byron, and Mary Shelley herself, and penned in period-perfect voice, The Casebook of Victor Frankenstein is sure to become a classic of the twenty-first century.

PETER ACKROYD is an award-winning novelist, as well as a broadcaster, biographer, poet, and historian. He is the author of the acclaimed Thames: Sacred River, London: The Biography, and the first volume of his history of England, Foundation. He holds a CBE for services to literature and lives in London.

The New York Times

For a mad scientist, Victor is awfully well connected — better, even, than Charles and Mary Lamb, who held center stage in Ackroyd’s lovely novel of the Romantic age, “The Lambs of London.” Thomas Rowlandson, Richard Brinsley Sheridan and Sarah Siddons drift fleetingly into the Lambs’ orbit, and ...

Suite 101

Review (Barnes & Noble)

Following his penchant for interweaving diverse sources, Ackroyd introduces a host of real-life characters in the narrative: from Mary Shelley (née Godwin) herself to her husband, the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, here an enigmatic influence on Victor, the narrator and creator of the eponymous monst...

PopMatters

Historical Novel Society

Dr Frankenstein has a fearful secret in the knowledge that during his experiments with electrical forces in London he has reanimated a corpse, who is now running amok as a fearsome and ugly monster, seeking some form of revenge for his resurrection, haunting Frankenstein with the terrible being h...

Bookmarks Magazine

Chamber Four

I bought this book on a dorky impulse (it’s the sort of thing that occurs often), mostly because Frankenstein is one of my favorite novels, and because I had recently read John Kessel’s awesome short story, “Pride and Prometheus.” Peter Ackroyd does Shelley’s book justice, deftly weaving historic...